Battleground

13

General Umar Maleceia stormed from one side of his large office in the military headquarters to the other. His dark green uniform shirt showed stains of sweat under the arms and down the chest. His eyes bulged as he stopped in front of his second in command, Colonel Jomo Kariuki.

"How could this happen? Our troops at the American Embassy have been slaughtered and the hostages have been taken away? How could you let this happen?"

"General, sir. They had fast jet fighters that attacked the embassy. Then they brought in large helicopters with troops in them, and the fighters flew cover. Two of our weapons carriers were destroyed."

"These same jets shot down one of our MiGs?"

"Yes, sir. We now have only tatu, just three of the MiGs left."

The phone rang. The colonel picked it up. He answered, listened for a moment, then held out the handset. "General, you better hear this."

"What? What is it?" Colonel Kariuki pushed the handset toward the general.

"Yes, yes, what is it?" Maleceia listened a moment, then had the man on the other end repeat the words when static interrupted the telephone conversation.

General Maleceia pulled the handset away from his mouth and threw it and the phone across the room.

"Attacking us again! They are attacking the prison where I have the rest of my hostages! How can I demand money and goods from America if I don't have any hostages?"

Colonel Kariuki stepped back to be out of the rage pattern of his commander.

"Sir, we have five hundred seasoned troops in a camp just north of Mombasa. I can alert them now, and they can be at the prison in a half hour."

General Maleceia seemed not to hear his advisor. He swept everything off his desk. He threw a portable radio across the room, smashing a window. He kicked over his desk chair, and then sat down on the desk hard, his hands over his face.

"General we can send in troops from the camp north-"

General Maleceia looked up with a killing stare, and Colonel Kariuki stopped.

"I know where our troops are, Kariuki. In a half hour the attackers may be gone. Why don't we have more helicopters? Why not more than three jet fighters? I know. They cost hard currency, which we don't have. Yes, send the jets down to blast anything they see that moves around the prison. If we can't keep the hostages, at least we can kill them all."

"General, the report is that there is air cover for the raid. It is probably the F-14s, the same type plane we think shot down our MiG. Sir, they are much faster, with better missiles and far better radar than our older MiGs. Our pilots wouldn't stand a chance."

"Send them up now. They can be in Mombasa long before the troops can move across town in the trucks. Order it at once."

"Yes, General." The major went outside to his desk, where he made two phone calls. Three minutes later it was done. The three jets would be lifting off from their home base near Nairobi within fifteen minutes. They would be at Mombasa in another thirty minutes. It all depended how quickly the American raiders could rescue the sailors and get them out of the area. It all depended. He had no hope that the troops in their trucks would be of any practical use.

If the jets got to the prison in Mombasa before 2245, they might have a shot at helping. The colonel gave a short sigh. If they weren't shot down fifty miles from their target.

"Somebody has night eyes over there," Brown said. He had just cranked out another .50-caliber round that didn't find a home.

"Soon as I got off that first round, that damned truck jolted behind that offset in the front of the building. Can't even see the bastard now."

"But if we started sending men outside, he could pull out, fire off a dozen rounds, and slam back in hiding before you got off more than one shot," Murdock said.

He turned to Holt. "Call in the Tom Cats. We need some help."

Holt picked up the mike. "Tom Birds, got your ears on? This is Dry Water One."

"Oh, yeah, Dry Water. We've got company. Two more Cats to help. What's up?"

"Do a flyby at the front of the building. There's a vehicle with a fifty-caliber MG that has us pinned. We're at a door at the front near the west end of the place. Be right obliged if you could disassemble that fifty and not burn us out."

"Roger that, Dry Water. How far are you from the target?"

"Eighty yards, Tom Bird."

"Keep your heads down."

Two minutes later two jets came in on a strafing run, their 20mm cannon spouting bright flashes in the darkness. The front of the building took a pounding as the birds followed one another, then slanted up and away.

Brown watched through his scope. "Close, but no hits. Tell them to move it about twenty yards left."

"Tom Birds. Our spotter says no rubber duck. Adjust twenty yards your left for target."

"Thanks, Dry Water. We're a little blind up here."

On the next run, four Tom Cats thundered out of the sky at twenty-second intervals, and blasted the small truck into two million pieces. Magic Brown laughed and folded up his bipod.

"I'd say we're free and clear, L-T."

"Holt, get on the horn to the carrier. Tell them we're moving out of the store with the goods. ETA the water, thirty minutes."

"Got it, L-T."

"Commander, get your men moving out and to the left. We'll ride shotgun for you. Can your men march?"

"No food for three days, but we can move, maybe not up to SEAL standards."

"We'll go at your pace, Commander. Let's do it now."

They came out the door in a ragged line, formed into a column of ducks, and worked down the front of the building for another fifty yards, then angled toward the brush that hid the finger of Mombasa Bay. It was too long a line, and Murdock was worried.

Holt thanked the Tom Birds that were in a holding pattern over the site. Then he picked up some flyboy chatter.

"Tom Bird One, this is Four. I have what could be a visitor from the north on my screen. Anyone copy it?"

"Tom Bird Four, I don't see anything. You and Three take a run up north for fifty miles and see what's out there."

"Will do, One." Murdock looked at Holt. "What was that all about?" Holt told him. "Is Maleceia foolish enough to send more of his too few MiGs down this way?"

"Could be, could be a flight of geese." The line of sailors moved slower than Murdock wanted. Two men had broken down and were being carried by a two-man hand-chair arrangement. They had roughly a half mile to go to a spot along shore where a pickup could be made. Murdock figured his men would be late. They had left the dead sailor in the prison.

Murdock heard the chatter of small arms before he saw anyone.

"Hit the dirt!" Murdock bellowed. The SEALS down the long line repeated the words.

Murdock looked at a slight rise to the west of the prison. He saw the headlights of a vehicle before someone remembered and cut them off.

"Ronson, get set up," Murdock bellowed. The machine gunner came out of the line, flopped on his stomach, and angled his HK-21A1 toward where he had seen the lights.

"Wait for some muzzle flashes," Murdock said. The SEALs with long guns were down and ready.

Half-a-dozen flashes came and bullets sang around them. The SEALs poured fifty rounds into the immediate area. Ronson's machine gun chattered with five- and seven-round bursts until the one-hundred-round belt emptied. He fit in a new one and waited.

"Range?" Murdock asked Jaybird, who had been firing beside him.

"More than fifty yards, Sir. I'd say about two hundred."

"Ching, Adams, Yates, Jaybird. Let's move up there. Long gunners, give us some cover. We'll be to the right for five minutes, then cease fire."

They moved out with their NVGs up, running low to the ground. Murdock led them. The land had been cleared here for two hundred yards and there wasn't much cover. Murdock hoped the men on the rise didn't have NVGs. The SEALS covered half the distance and went to ground. The SEALs below hammered out with the heavier rounds from the sniper rifles, MGs, and M-4A1's.

Murdock angled his men more to the right. He could see the small ridgeline, and a couple of minutes later they were to it. He looked over.

Down forty yards, he saw the enemy. Six Kenyan rangers fired over the small ridgeline with perfect cover. Until now.

Murdock brought his four men up so each had a free field of fire.

"Now," he said in his mike, and all five blasted the six men. The rangers were caught by surprise. Four of them went down in the first furious fusillade. One crawled toward the small truck. Murdock slammed six rounds into him before he made it.

Jaybird caught the last man trying to run up the hill. He blasted him with a three-round burst, and the man went into the dirt and lay still.

"Move the men out for the water," Murdock said into his mike. "Tell the commander to get his men off their asses and heading for the bay."

Murdock and the four SEALs jogged down the hill, angling to catch up with the rest of the group.

Holt touched Murdock's arm. "L-T, the flyboys are on again."

"Tom One, this is Three."

"Find anybody out there?"

"We've got three blips coming in fast from the north. Still over a hundred miles away. Closing at about six hundred."

"Those old MiGs again. Warn them to turn around, and get a radar ID."

"Roger that."

"Home Plate, you copy that?"

"Right. If they keep coming and don't acknowledge, you have missiles free. I repeat, Tom Birds, your missiles are free."

"Roger that, Home Plate. You copy, Tom Three and Four?"

"Right. They're still coming."

Murdock looked at the shadowy line of men. He wanted to run up and carry each one. No food for three days would take a toll on them. They had been functioning on adrenaline, but that was burning off. They still had a quarter of a mile to go, and there was a small ravine in front of them they had to cross. Bad news.

"Holt, tell the carrier we're running late. Have them hold the transport offshore until we get better positioned. We need to be there waiting for them when they come in. They can't do it quietly, so it has to be fast."

"Will do, sir. They have the two LCACs off the coast now waiting for our go. They say it will take them less than eight minutes to get from two miles offshore into our inlet."

"That fast?"

"They do forty knots, L-T."

"We're nowhere near ready for them to be moving yet. Have them hold."

Murdock heard something. At first he thought it was a plane, but the jets were well overhead. Then he caught it truck engines. The sound came from the hill where the six men had been. The sound came closer, then stopped.

The first sailors were in the ravine. It was the only cover around here. The trucks had to mean more troops from somewhere in Mombasa. The prison troops had had time to call for help.

"Get all the crew in the ravine," Murdock yelled. "We've got company."

"SEALS, get these men into the ravine," Murdock said on his radio mike. "It's the only cover anywhere around. First Squad break to the right and form up. Second Squad go left so we can get some cross fire on these assholes. Move. Take the suppressors off the MP-5s to get more range."

Two searchlights came on, shining from the ridge above, and began to sweep the area. Magic Brown lifted his HK sniper rifle and blew out both of them with two quick shots. The lights hadn't touched the last of the sailors, who dropped into the ravine and out of sight.

Murdock had his men in an assault line when the first of the troops came over the small ridge that had been protecting them.

He used the Motorola. "See them? Let's give them a real hot SEAL welcome."

Sixteen weapons opened up on the surprised Kenyan troops. They had no idea where their enemy was. Fire laced into the ranks from both sides and they dropped to the ground. A few fired at the gun flashes on both sides.

A Kenyan machine gun opened up, firing at DeWitt's squad. Six of his weapons concentrated on the MG man, and he went out of business quickly. For a few minutes there was no leadership among the men on the ridge. Murdock had no way of estimating how many there were. He'd seen maybe twenty different weapons firing. For the number of trucks he heard, there should be a lot more ground troops than that.

Then just to his left, fifty yards from the first soldiers, another group of Kenyan rangers hit the ridge firing. The rounds weren't aimed at anyone. They couldn't see anyone. They simply fired down the slope.

Murdock's men concentrated on the new targets. Answering the SEALs' fire came a scattering of rounds, and Murdock heard a sharp cry to the left.

"Holt, that you? You hit?"

He got only silence.

Murdock crawled five yards to where he had last heard from Holt. The radioman lay on his back, the SATCOM radio half torn off his shoulder pack.

Murdock felt Holt's back and side, but didn't find any blood. He slapped the radioman's face gently. Holt shivered, then shook his head and blinked.

"What the hell?"

"Your radio just became a casualty. You hurt anywhere?"

"Sore as hell in my back and side. Maybe the round hit the radio and that damn SATCOM hit me and knocked me out."

Murdock unstrapped the radio and dropped it on the ground. He hit his Motorola mike. "DeWitt, we just lost the SATCOM. Get Willy Bishop to warm up his contact with the planes. We can use some close ground support on this PUPPY."

The men on the ridge kept firing. Murdock moved his men twice, and told them to hold fire so the Kenyans couldn't find them and have a target.

Two minutes later DeWitt came on the Motorola. "SATCOM contacted the F-14s. They see the firing, want a flare and a red smoke on the target. They'll be here in three minutes."

"You shoot the flares in two minutes," Murdock said.

It was a long damn two minutes, Murdock decided. Then the white flare burst over the Kenyans and a red smoke hit among them, and within seconds two F-14's came down in rapid order blasting the Kenyan troops with 20mm rounds.

"Fire at will," Murdock said into his mike, and all the SEAL weapons opened up again.

One more jet came sweeping in, blasting the men and probably the trucks behind them just as the flare burned out, and Murdock nodded. He saw two fires burning behind the ridge. Two trucks to the torch. The Kenyans would be lucky if they had enough men left for one truckload.

Engines roared, and the remains of the truck troops motored away in the direction they had come from.

"Back to the ravine," Murdock said.

It took them fifteen minutes to get the tired sailors on their feet and out of the safety of the ravine. Two more had to be carried now as they moved down the slope toward the inlet three hundred yards away.

Murdock didn't believe that it took them ten minutes to move the three hundred yards. Just as they hit the trees near the water, he told Bishop to call the LCACs circling offshore.

"Tell them we're on the beach ready to board," Murdock said.

Bishop came up to Murdock. "Message sent, Sir. They said they have three craft and will be on-site here in eight minutes. How fast are those air-cushioned boats anyway?"

"The LCACs can do forty knots when they're in a rush, which they will be. We're going to put fifty-nine men on each boat, so it will be damn crowded, but the ensign from the boats said it will work."

Commander Judd came up. "Three craft coming in?"

"Yes, Sir. Time to split your men into three groups. We'll load fifty-four of your men on each of the air-cushion boats and get the hell out of here."

"With five of your men, that's almost sixty men to a boat," Judd said. "Where will they put us?" Then he shrugged. "They must know what they're doing. I'll split up the group."

Murdock told DeWitt to put his squad on one of the hovercraft, saying he'd split his own squad between the other two. Then the SEALs spread out, all facing toward the prison, as a rear guard to wait for the boats.

Murdock had wondered about the air-cushion craft as well. They had almost no cargo space, were only eighty-eight feet long, and topside were covered with ducts and fans and blowers. He hoped the sixty men could find a place to hold on.

Murdock heard the jets overhead. They'd be there until the landing craft were tucked up to the carrier four miles to sea. What could go wrong, now? Maybe the Kenyan Navy. They had talked about the patrol craft the Kenyans had. The question was how many of the ships had gone over to the colonel in the coup. They heard some of the ships had simply put to sea to wait out the confusion.

On the carrier, they had been most worried about the two Kenyan fast-attack craft with missiles. They were the Nyayo class, 186 feet long, and could do forty knots. They carried SSM-40TO Melara missiles with radar guidance and 210kilogram warheads.

The F-14's would be watching for them.

Bishop came up and gave Murdock the listen/talk handset.

He heard the fighters overhead.

"That's a roger, Bird One. The three bogies are still on course, now about fifty miles and closing. They have ignored our ID calls. They definitely are not friendlies."

"This is Home Plate. Tom Birds, your weapons are free. Splash two. I repeat. Splash two."

"This is Tom Bird Three. I say lock on. I have a fox three from Tom Bird Three." It was the aviator's code for a Phoenix missile launch.

"This is Tom Bird Four. I have lock on. I say a fox three from Tom Bird Four."

"Two Phoenix birds away and homing," Tom Bird Three said.

A moment later. "I have splash on bogie three."

"Splash on bogie two."

The air was quiet for a moment. "The third target has just turned and is heading back the way he came. Looks like the fun is over."

"Well done, return to your cover assignment," Home Plate said.

On the ground by the inlet, the SEALs heard the whine and roar of the air-cushioned craft two minutes before they saw them. Three of the craft raced forward at a surprising speed, making a huge spray of water and foam as the ducted air fans beat air into the water to keep the craft lifted off it, while fans in back slammed them forward. Suddenly they cut power and slowed dramatically before they drove directly on the beach from the water, scattering sand and sticks from the air blowers. The engines idled down, and the front ramps lowered on both craft.

Commander Judd had the men in three groups on their feet waiting. They moved on board like well-trained combat troops. Murdock gawked in surprise. He got his men on the second and third craft, saw DeWitt get his squad aboard, and then the ramps came up. At once they roared off the beach into the water and slammed down the inlet toward the bay. The LCAC boats hadn't been on the sand more than a minute and a half.

Their only armament were 12.2mm machine guns. Murdock told Magic Brown to get out his fifty just in case they needed it. The sixty men crowded the rail and clung to the sides of air shafts and any spare spot they could find on a deck filled with pipes and tubes and compartments. Murdock saw why the specs said the boat was made to handle only twenty-four troops.

They entered the bay proper, and turned left in a gentle curve spraying water fifty feet. Douglas tailed Murdock wherever he went. His radio was still set to the aircraft, and a moment later they heard the landing craft's radio.

"Tom Birds, this is Cushion One. I've got lights and a wake coming up fast behind us. Can you see it? Left side of the island in the channel."

"Looking, Cushion One. Yes, have it. Looks like a fighting ship. Kenya have any big patrol craft?"

"Tom Birds, could be a fast-attack boat with missiles. We're ducks on a pond here. They match our speed."

"We can't see much on each fly-over."

"Can you tell if they have missile launchers?"

"I'd say that's a roger," another voice came in. "Can't be sure. Can see what looks like a three-inch gun on the bow."

"She must be a thousand meters behind us. If she's got missiles, we're dead swimmers down here."

"How about a strafing run in front of her with twenties?" Bird One asked.

"Give it a try."

Murdock and the men watched as one F-14 slanted down and traced a fifty-yard line of 20mm rounds across the path of the speedy boat and not more than thirty yards off her bow.

"Got her attention, she slowed some." There was a pause.

"Nope, she's up to speed again, Cushion."

"Can you get a go-ahead to splash her?" Cushion asked.

"That's a negative, not unless we get some hostile action from her. Maybe she's an escort."

A moment later the Kenyan boat behind them began winking at them with what had to be rapid machine-gun fire.

"Hostile action, we're being fired on," Cushion shouted into his mike.

"Weapons free, coming around."

Murdock nodded at Magic Brown. "See if you can find their range."

Brown had been sighting in on the craft with the 16-power scope. He held his breath, refined his sights, and fired. He pulled the bolt back and rammed it forward and sighted in again.

"Oh, yeah, right in his basket," Magic said. He pounded off three more rounds, then took out the magazine and pushed in another ten-shot magazine filled with armor-piercing rounds. Three more rounds from Magic slammed toward the enemy craft over half a mile behind them.

"Why don't they use the missiles?" Murdock asked.

Brown shook his head, and went on firing. "Maybe they don't have any on board."

He fired six more times before three F-14s blasted down on a strafing run, and riddled the Kenyan boat with 20mm cannon fire. Murdock couldn't tell how many of the 20mm rounds hit the Kenyan craft, but it slowed and then made a sharp right turn, and almost plowed into the side of the mainland.

"That river rat down there is out of business," Tom Bird One said. "He took thirty or forty hits, and I think lost his bridge. He's dead in the water."

"That's a Roger, thanks, Bird One," Cushion said. "We're continuing down the channel."

Murdock slapped Magic on the back. "Glad the Kenyans didn't get their missiles working. Also wonder why didn't they use their twenty-millimeter gun on there that can spit out eight hundred rounds a minute."

"Hell, that's nothing," Magic said. "On a good day I can get off fifteen rounds in a minute."

They all laughed as the eighty-five-footer slashed along at forty knots heading down the last half mile of the bay toward the ocean. The flyboys came back on the air.

"Cushion One, looks like you're free and clear. We see no more pursuit. We say negative on any more pursuit."

"Thanks, Tom Birds. You earned your day's pay. We've got about a hundred and eighty men on these boats who thank you."

They swept past the little village of Likoni on the point of land across from Mombasa Island with a roaring and a massive spraying of water from the air-cushioned crafts that would give the natives something to talk about for weeks.

Four minutes later, the three landing craft took turns pulling alongside a landing platform hung at a low hatch on the big aircraft carrier. Slowly and carefully, the hostage crewmen left the landing craft and walked onto the carrier. Six wounded had to be taken off by corpsmen on stretchers.

Murdock was the last man off. He shook hands with the ensign on board the landing craft, and went up to the SEAL planning room, where he had told his men to meet.

The SEALs had sprawled where they landed in the big room. Murdock looked at Jaybird. "Casualty report."

Jaybird looked around. "Ronson for sure. Doc needs to look at Holt's back. He might have a cracked rib or two. We'll check on Magic Brown's leg. Anybody else?"

"Yeah," Red Nicholson said. He held up his hand. His spray-soaked desert cammie sleeve showed bright with blood. Then he fell forward flat on his face.